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Aldborough, an insignificant village situated on the River Wharf, and the market town of Boroughbridge, two miles to the west on the River Ure, lay on the border between the North and West Ridings of the county, some 15 miles south-west of York. Boroughbridge was described in 1828 as ‘a place of no importance as to trade or manufacturers’, whose ‘chief consequence ... derived from its thoroughfare situation ... on the great north road’.3 The franchise at Aldborough had customarily been vested in ratepayers residing within the old town walls, ‘an inconsiderable part of the parish of Aldborough’, while in Boroughbridge, which was within the same parish, it was held to be in the occupiers of burgage properties who had been admitted at the court of the lord of the manor of Aldborough, the 4th duke of Newcastle. He effectively appointed the bailiffs, the returning officers for parliamentary elections in each of the boroughs, who were invariably his tenants; in practice, the posts were held by the same persons for many years, although annual elections were technically required. In the eighteenth century the 1st and 2nd dukes had tacitly agreed to allow the Wilkinson family of Boroughbridge Hall to nominate to one of the parliamentary seats, but this arrangement had been in abeyance since 1777 and the 4th duke claimed the right to nominate all four Members. This was challenged in 1818 by Marmaduke Lawson, whose mother Barbara had inherited the Wilkinson interest. By developing his plan in secret, Lawson caught Newcastle totally unprepared and secured his own return for Boroughbridge. After vacating his seat the following year he was unopposed at the resulting by-election. Nevertheless, the duke, shaken out of his complacency, was determined to reassert his control: twelve of his Boroughbridge tenants who had voted for Lawson were evicted and replaced with others expected to be more compliant to his wishes, and the terms for all his tenants in the two boroughs were revised to make them tenants-at-will. He also visited the boroughs and spent £156 in an attempt to boost his popularity. In July 1819 his aged steward, Richard Scruton, estimated that at Aldborough there were 63 eligible voters, of whom the duke controlled 47 and Mrs. Lawson six, the other ten being controlled by various freeholders, six of whom were Newcastle’s tenants. At Boroughbridge, Scruton reckoned that Newcastle controlled 39 of the burgages and Mrs. Lawson 23 and five vacant sites. The struggle between Newcastle and the Lawsons, which continued throughout this period, concerned nomination rights rather than politics; for the duke, his nominees and the Lawsons (despite Marmaduke’s eccentricities) were essentially of the same Tory persuasion.4

At the dissolution in 1820 Newcastle was well prepared, having decided that his kinsman Henry Fynes should again stand for Aldborough, this time with Gibbs Crawfurd Antrobus, the nephew of the partner of his banker, Thomas Coutts. For Boroughbridge he intended that his brother-in-law George Mundy should seek re-election and be partnered by another relative, Henry Dawkins. Lawson, too, had carefully laid the ground, and wrote to his brother Andrew that ‘nothing can be easier than to get a return’. His plan was to elect a rival bailiff at Boroughbridge who would reject the votes of Newcastle’s new tenants and accept those of the evicted ones, whom Mrs. Lawson had rehoused. Lawson believed that they could retain their votes as they had neither voluntarily resigned their burgage houses nor left the borough. He foresaw the inevitability of Newcastle’s petitioning against a return made in such circumstances and the expense that would be involved, which would force him to rely on his mother’s financial resources. His agent, William Bryant, a former steward to the 2nd earl of Hardwicke and the owner of a few houses in the parish, proposed to start his own son Charles for Aldborough. Lawson conferred in London with Richard Spooner, a Birmingham banker and prominent currency reformer, who had agreed to partner him at Boroughbridge. They tried to find a fourth candidate and at one point thought they had secured Stephen Gaselee, the eminent king’s counsel. Nothing further was heard of him and in the event John Pringle†, the Whig Member for Linlithgow Burghs, came forward with Charles Bryant at Aldborough. Fynes and Mundy canvassed both boroughs together (Antrobus was absent throughout as secretary of legation in the United States), while Charles Bryant entered Aldborough and claimed to have received 18 immediate promises from electors. Scruton arranged for ‘half-a-dozen boys to follow [his] steps with horns, hooting’. Bryant had no expectation of success, but hoped to shake Newcastle’s interest ‘so as to render his defeat an easy matter on the next occasion’. Newcastle’s agents meantime circulated a rumour that Lawson had been offered a seat at Ripon. In Aldborough Bryant tried to assert the voting rights of all ratepayers living in the town, which covered a much larger area than the walled town, but the bailiff refused to accept votes from those living beyond the traditional boundary and Fynes and Antrobus were declared elected. At Boroughbridge, where Richard Cass was the bailiff chosen on Newcastle’s interest, Lawson elected his own bailiff, Thomas Darnborough, thus ensuing that there would be two polls. All four candidates were chaired, and a threat of violence towards Lawson came to no more than the wrecking of his chair. He now played his trump card, dispatching his attorney to York with the indenture and relying on his personal acquaintance with Henry Vansittart, the sheriff of Yorkshire, to secure its acceptance instead of that issued by Cass; it was, and Lawson and Spooner were declared elected.5

As anticipated, the losing party in each borough instigated petitions to the Commons. With regard to Aldborough, Bryant petitioned on 11 May 1820, asserting that Cass was not eligible to be bailiff and had rejected valid votes for himself, and that the absent Antrobus should be disqualified as he had not provided evidence of his property qualification. Fynes presented a petition from Antrobus’s agent, William Green, 18 May, requesting more time to prove his qualification and that Green be allowed to swear it; this was agreed the next day. Bryant entered a counter-petition, 26 May, complaining that Green was not Antrobus’s agent but an attorney employed by Newcastle. The previous day Bryant’s father had petitioned for more time for recognizances to be entered into on his son’s original petition, which was also granted. Although Charles Bryant renewed his petition, 26 Jan., he attempted to withdraw it, 26 Feb. 1821, in the belief that Mrs. Lawson was now hostile to him and his future hopes. Nevertheless, it was considered by a committee, 8 May 1821, which declared Antrobus duly elected the next day. No clear decision was reached on the question of voting rights, and in 1822 Mrs. Lawson, acting through a resident whose claim had been rejected, launched proceedings against Cass in king’s bench, seeking to prove that he had acted with malice in rejecting the votes of those living outside the old town walls. After the failure of this attempt, Newcastle’s agents suggested various schemes to delineate the town walls more clearly.6

In the case of Boroughbridge, Dawkins and Mundy petitioned the Commons, 4 May 1820, maintaining that Darnborough’s election as bailiff was unlawful and that the votes of the 12 evicted tenants were invalid. Green, in reporting to Newcastle that Jonathan Raine would act as their nominee on the committee, observed that ‘the right of voting has been [so] very dissimilar to that of any other borough that our counsel have great difficulty in shaping our case’. The committee decided first to determine the right of election. Scruton informed them that there were 55 single burgages, two double ones and six sites, making 65 burgages. He believed that the sites, all six of which were within the grounds of Mrs. Lawson’s residence, Boroughbridge Hall, gave a right to vote. He added that the franchise had, for the last century, been vested in those admitted at the court of the lord of the manor of Aldborough by taking the oath. Lawson and Spooner’s counsel contended that voting was vested in ‘the admission of boroughmen’, which was limited to 66 or 67 sites with a right of common. They conceded that Newcastle controlled 38 or 39 and Mrs. Lawson 28, but claimed that Newcastle’s dismissed tenants still retained their vote (Newcastle had brought a test case before king’s bench which ruled that they did not). The committee rejected these votes and allowed those of the new tenants, having determined that the right of election was in those persons whose names appeared on the manorial roll of Aldborough ‘as tenants of burgage houses, or the sites of burgage houses, in Boroughbridge’, who ‘shall have been duly admitted thereon, according to the custom of the manor, being resident within the said borough’. Green warned Newcastle that Spooner ‘appears determined to try every point’ and the consequent expense ‘will be very great’. On 7 June the committee unseated Lawson and Spooner in favour of Dawkins and Mundy. Green reported to Newcastle that ‘Spooner, who is mortified beyond description, threatens to appeal’, but ‘I do not think he will’, and he added that ‘to Mr. Raine we are very much indebted for most indefatigable assistance’. Lawson and Spooner, unwilling to concede defeat, obtained a ruling in king’s bench that the voting rights should be reconsidered, 29 Nov. 1820. The court subsequently ruled against them, 8 Feb. 1821, but three days earlier, perhaps in anticipation of defeat, they had again petitioned the House. Green remarked to Newcastle that ‘it is clear they are determined to make every possible effort to break in upon your Grace’s interest’. However, the resulting committee again found in favour of Dawkins and Mundy, 17 May 1821.7

Both parties sought to reinforce their positions during the years that followed. In September 1821 Andrew Lawson wrote to Newcastle, offering to act as a ‘mediator’ and acknowledging the ‘folly’ of continuing as they were. Yet his proposed solution was not new, for he simply proposed that the duke concede his family a seat, claiming to have in ‘the handwriting of your predecessors’ a document granting them such a right. Newcastle dismissed this approach and countered with an offer to purchase some of the Lawson’s property, which was immediately rejected. Later that year Scruton reported that he had evicted a number of widows and would ‘take care to put in such new tenants ... as we can confide in’. He noted that ‘Mrs. Lawson appears to be contriving to make up all her votes about her house’, but ‘how they are to be occupied it does not yet appear’, though ‘reports say ... she intends [it to be] her own servants’.8 Following Marmaduke Lawson’s death in March 1823 Newcastle’s new steward, William Hirst, had hopes of ending the conflict between the two parties, observing that Andrew Lawson, who ‘will now succeed to the [Boroughbridge Hall] estate upon the death of his mother’, had ‘all along evinced much good feeling towards your Grace and your tenantry’. However, Lawson adopted a more forthright stance, warning the duke that ‘if you decide upon a war ... I shall spare neither expense nor trouble to uphold our family rights’. Newcastle made the typically dismissive reply that ‘I have never been the aggressor’ and ‘know not what those family rights may be’. His renewed offer to purchase some of the Lawson’s property was met with the retort that ‘none can be sold during my life without my consent, which certainly will never be given’. Hirst was now ‘heartily sorry to learn’ that Lawson ‘is likely to be as troublesome as his brother’. In the autumn of 1824 Mrs. Lawson wrote to Newcastle in a more conciliatory manner, acknowledging his dominance but requesting, in view of her family’s position, the opportunity to nominate a Member for Boroughbridge at the next general election. Newcastle replied flatteringly, but he suspected trickery and did not grant her wish.9 Meantime, Hirst had arranged for alterations to be made to one of the duke’s double burgages, ‘so as to enable us to give two votes for it’ instead of one, and he later took steps to obtain another burgage property for him. In May 1825 Hirst was able to give ‘a good account of everything’ at Boroughbridge.10 Shortly before the dissolution in 1826 Newcastle received intelligence that Spooner intended to come forward again. He made enquiries of Hirst, who replied:

There has certainly been no stir, nor has anything occurred here to induce suspicion. I beg to state that when I reflect that at Boroughbridge the majority of our votes is so small that five or six would turn the scale, that the voters, generally, are a class of needy persons, it is impossible, when there is a violent contest, not to be apprehensive as to the result. The Lawsons living on the spot, being liberal to the poor and aiming at popularity, as it is clear Mr. Lawson has lately done with the neighbouring farmers and inhabitants, upon whose favours in business many of those voters materially depend for a livelihood, are also circumstances unfavourable to our cause. Still, however, I believe they can only succeed against us by having recourse to unfair or illegal practices, and bribery might probably be exposed ... The expenses too, in the event of opposition must necessarily be very heavy. Upon the whole, therefore, I cannot help thinking that if your Grace could, with propriety, adopt any measure to avoid a contest, it would be the wisest policy on your part.

Hirst recommended that Newcastle should concede a seat and urged that this be done immediately to allay any danger. At Aldborough, on the other hand, he believed that ‘we are safe’. Spooner did indeed plan to contest Boroughbridge, partnered by a friend, one Richards. They had the full backing of the Lawsons and tried to use the threat of their candidatures to bring Newcastle to terms. The duke, though, remained resolute: Dawkins and Mundy were to come in for Boroughbridge, while at Aldborough he decided to replace Fynes with his brother Clinton James Fynes Clinton and Antrobus with Sir Alexander Grant, the wealthy West Indian proprietor who had been recommended by the home secretary Peel. Andrew Lawson declared himself for Aldborough and was joined by his brother-in-law Edward Sherlock Gooch, whose father Sir Thomas Gooch* informed the Liverpool ministry’s patronage secretary that they did not expect to be returned but intended to petition in order to challenge the right of election.11 In the event, Spooner and Richards canvassed Boroughbridge and did everything but stand the poll, Dawkins and Mundy being returned unopposed. Fynes Clinton and Grant were similarly returned at Aldborough, despite Lawson and Gooch’s intervention. Newcastle attributed his candidates’ success to ‘an attention and good management so as to have absolutely the mob with them’, and observed that ‘the advocacy of Protestantism makes them so popular’. Lawson and Spooner threatened to petition, and Newcastle’s agents prepared to defend the return and the existing right of election in each borough. Lawson announced that he was to build as many houses as he could within the walls of Aldborough, and Hirst advised Newcastle to purchase as much property as possible there. Spooner and Richards meanwhile canvassed Mrs. Lawson’s tenants in Boroughbridge with a view to the next election. Spooner also tried to extort money from the duke: his attorney met Newcastle’s and warned that Spooner would proceed with his petition unless they could reach some agreement over his and Richards’s expenses of £400-500. In fact, Lawson and Spooner’s threats turned out to be mere bluff and no petition was forthcoming for either borough. Nevertheless, Newcastle had been put to the expense of employing three lawyers.12 The duke may have taken some comfort from Grant’s willingness to contribute to the election expenses. Hirst reported that the Aldborough election had cost £514 13s. 1d., of which he expected half from Grant. The total for both boroughs he put at £1,723. Explaining why Aldborough was so much cheaper than Boroughbridge, he pointed out that ‘our Aldborough tenantry were assisting us and feasted here [at Boroughbridge] during a great part of the time’. He subsequently advised Newcastle that Grant should pay the Boroughbridge expenses and someone else Aldborough’s. Grant eventually paid £1,145, ‘to discharge the innkeepers’ bills at Boroughbridge’ for ‘the friends of Messrs. Mundy and Dawkins’, leaving Newcastle to pay £577.13

Hirst had previously warned Newcastle of the possible sale of small freeholds within the walls of Aldborough, which might fall into Lawson’s hands, but in the summer of 1826 he was able to confirm the purchase of a cottage and some land there for £250. That autumn he was again on his guard to prevent the erosion of Newcastle’s dominance: there were several new voters (they had been rated to the poor for the first time) over whom Lawson had some influence, and to counter this Hirst discharged any women who were ducal tenants in order to make room for men; in one case at least, he hoped to lessen the blow by introducing a relative as tenant. Hirst also drew up a report on property ownership in Aldborough, which showed Newcastle to have 49 houses within the walls, plus some ‘conveniently situated land well adapted for building’. In addition, Hirst had contracted to purchase another house and two more were built by the end of the year, at a cost of £60.14 By February 1827 the attorney William Tallents, Newcastle’s steward at Newark, had completed the preparatory work to contest the anticipated petition against the Boroughbridge return. He drew up a detailed report on the burgages there, the historical proof for each and the prospects for alterations to secure more votes. He also set out how to challenge some of the votes claimed for the burgages and sites owned by the Lawsons, and concluded that the duke controlled 38 and the Lawsons 28. In the event, no petition materialized.15 However, the annual elections for bailiff continued to provide an alternative focus for opposition to Newcastle. In February 1827 the duke, expecting trouble, sent Tallents to supervise the proceedings at Boroughbridge, where Lawson offered no candidate but entered a protest. The following year the outgoing bailiff set 8 Feb. as the date for the election, but Lawson arranged to hold a separate one a week earlier and secured the appointment of one of his tenants; Newcastle’s party proceeded to their own election without interruption. Hirst urged that the sheriff of Yorkshire be informed and legal proceedings taken against the sham bailiff, but, curiously, Newcastle rejected this advice. Hirst persisted, warning that the undersheriff was favourably inclined to the Lawsons and that Lawson knew the sheriff. He also pointed out that if they ensured that their bailiff’s precept was accepted, it would probably prevent future trouble and expense; again, the duke apparently ignored this advice. With the prospect of two bailiffs officiating at the next Boroughbridge election, Newcastle finally entered into litigation in April 1829 in an attempt to prevent this, but evidently without success.16 In February 1828 Hirst reported that a petition from the two boroughs in favour of the Wakefield and Ferrybridge canal bill had been signed by ‘a very large majority of the most respectable inhabitants ... all of whom are considerably interested in the success of the measure’;17 it was presented to the Commons, 20 Feb. 1828. Newcastle was one of the most prominent of the Ultra Tories who were alienated from the duke of Wellington’s ministry by the granting of Catholic emancipation. His Members naturally voted against the bill, and the boroughs sent up a petition to the Commons against it, 10 Mar. 1829.18

In March 1830 Tallents assured Newcastle that Hirst had prepared ‘with great diligence’ for the anticipated election contest and petition at Boroughbridge. Sir Thomas Gooch visited the duke at the end of May in an attempt to ‘settle matters in such a way ... that all future litigation could be avoided’, but he got nowhere. By early July Newcastle had concluded his arrangements: Fynes Clinton was to retain his seat, Dawkins and Mundy retired owing to ill health, but Grant ‘parts company as he does not suit me’. In their place, the former attorney-general and leading Ultra Sir Charles Wetherell and the banker Matthias Attwood were brought forward at Boroughbridge, and Lord Stormont, heir of the Ultra 3rd earl of Mansfield, offered for Aldborough. Reports that Lawson was treating the electors alarmed the duke, who, finding that Boroughbridge was ‘in a very disorderly state’, requested the Members to ‘go down immediately’. Following the announcement of Lawson’s candidacy, 8 July, the Leeds Mercury commented that he had ‘the best wishes of a large majority of the inhabitants, though possibly not of the voters, which is quite a different thing’. He was joined by his friend William Alexander Mackinnon*, prompting Newcastle to remark that ‘government have sent down a man to oppose me ... but they might have sent a man to Jericho with equal success’. Once again there were two polls, officiated over by two bailiffs, but this time the sheriff accepted the return of Newcastle’s nominees. In contrast all was quiet at Aldborough, where it appeared that Newcastle had finally prevailed.19 Lawson and Mackinnon duly petitioned against the Boroughbridge return, 4 Nov. On 3 Dec. it came before a committee, which sat for a week and heard the petitioners object to 19 of the votes received by the Members and seek to establish the validity of 18 of their own which had been rejected by the bailiff, whose appointment they also disputed. The committee confirmed Wetherell and Attwood in their seats and the legitimacy of Newcastle’s bailiff, 10 Dec. 1830; they also struck off two of Lawson’s burgages. Newcastle was delighted, but his pleasure was diminished somewhat by the cost: Hirst’s bill alone came to £2,363, added to which was the cost of the elections themselves, estimated by the duke at about £2,000.20

Attwood, Fynes Clinton and Stormont helped to vote Wellington’s ministry out of office, 15 Nov. 1830. The inhabitants of each borough forwarded anti-slavery petitions to the Commons, 18 Nov. 1830, 28 Mar. 1831.21 The Grey ministry’s reform bill of March 1831 proposed to disfranchise both Aldborough and Boroughbridge, but the plan was subsequently revised to unite them and extend the boundary to encompass the whole parish and ‘one or two’ others, thereby raising the combined population over 2,000 and giving Aldborough one seat. The boroughs reportedly forwarded hostile petitions to the Commons, but these were not presented.22 All four Members voted for Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr. 1831. At the ensuing dissolution Newcastle arranged for Stormont to make way for Michael Thomas Sadler, the factory reformer, at Aldborough, but instead of offering for Sadler’s seat at Newark, as the duke had intended, Stormont came in for New Woodstock; there was no change at Boroughbridge. Hirst reported to Newcastle that ‘we have again, after a hard struggle, succeeded in obtaining the precept’ for the election of the bailiffs. For the first time since 1818 the Lawsons put up no resistance at the general election, possibly because they were content to rely on the passage of the reform bill, which would have given them control of the enlarged constituency. The returns were free of incident and cost Newcastle only £469, of which Wetherell contributed some £130-140.23 The reintroduced reform bill proposed the same arrangement for the boroughs. In the debate on Boroughbridge’s disfranchisement, 20 July, Attwood disputed the House’s right to deprive the electors of their votes, as they had been ‘convicted of no crime, tainted with no corruption and charged with no abuse’; the resolution was agreed to without a division. Aldborough was debated in sometimes bitter exchanges, 27 July. Sadler protested at its partial disfranchisement and demanded that it retain both Members. He was opposed by Thomas Duncombe, who declared that ‘all the constituents’ of Aldborough and Boroughbridge ‘who have a will of their own’ were ‘decidedly in favour of this bill’, and that even if Aldborough was completely disfranchised ‘they would not lose one iota of their liberty, for liberty they have never enjoyed’. Sadler refuted his allegations and Stormont claimed that Duncombe’s brother had voted for him in 1830. Attwood and Wetherell also spoke in the borough’s defence, but it was retained in schedule B without a division. This prospect horrified Newcastle, who stood to lose control of the borough, and he urged Wetherell ‘to get Aldborough removed out of schedule B and extinguished altogether if it cannot be kept as it is’.24 Ironically, it was Duncombe who proposed to have Aldborough transferred to schedule A, 14 Sept. He was seconded by Sir William Amcotts Ingilby who argued that, even if preserved in an enlarged form, Aldborough would be no more than ‘a bone of contention between two families’. Fynes Clinton opposed the motion, but admitted that the prevailing interest would be destroyed if the borough remained in schedule B, and Wetherell declared that he could not vote for disfranchisement in any form. Lord John Russell could see no reason to alter the government’s plan and the motion was defeated, 149-64. The inhabitants of both boroughs petitioned the Lords in favour of the bill, 14 Oct. 1831, but asked that in the event of any alteration taking place, ‘the elective franchise be extended to the whole of Aldborough parish’.25

These arguments were nullified by the new criteria adopted in the revised reform bill of December 1831. Aldborough, which contained 106 houses and paid £113 in assessed taxes, was placed fifteenth in the list of the smallest English boroughs, and Boroughbridge, with 155 houses and £329 of taxes, was placed thirty-sixth; both were therefore scheduled for complete disfranchisement. John Croker* suggested to Newcastle in January 1832 that the two boroughs united but excluding the parish might come very near the ‘break even’ point for boroughs to retain one Member. This idea had attractions for Newcastle, as he would still have been able to control the return, but closer examination revealed that the two boroughs could not muster the necessary number of £10 houses, and Croker abandoned the plan.26 Aldborough and Boroughbridge were duly disfranchised and absorbed into the West Riding of Yorkshire. In February 1833 Newcastle resolved to part with all his property in Yorkshire, noting that ‘it is now that I feel how I have been robbed by the reformers, for if the boroughs had been still existing I might have obtained at least £200,000 for the four seats independently of the landed property’; he thought he ‘could have sold the whole for a certainty for £350,000, probably a good deal more’. He hoped to obtain £170,000, but the sale proved to be a protracted affair and property was disposed of in lots. A navigation company bought the manor of Aldborough, but it was acquired in 1847 by Andrew Lawson, Conservative Member for Knaresborough, 1835-7, 1841-7. Duncombe had the satisfaction of purchasing Aldborough Hall in 1834.27